Haiti

Peacekeepers out

FOR three years, the policing of Haiti has been done by men with an American drawl, Canadian courtesy or Pakistani aplomb. That's because law and order, such as there is in Haiti, has been maintained by the United Nations while a home-grown force is trained. The UN took over from the American troops who restored Jean-Bertrand Aristide to the presidency in 1994. Now the blue berets are leaving; most will be gone by Christmas. So all is well? Far from it.

Things have rarely been so dire in the basketcase of the Americas. The economy has yet to recover from the painful embargo imposed to make the military rulers hand over to Mr Aristide, and crime is soaring. With all the hope that followed Mr Aristide back into power now a bitter memory, the unthinkable seems increasingly possible: nostalgia for the Duvalier years.

One reason is the mockery Haiti's politicians have been making of their young democracy. The parliament has been paralysed by disputes over election results and a privatisation plan sponsored by René Préval, who won the presidential election last December. The squabbling led the prime minister, Rosny Smarth, to step down in June, but he unwisely said he would stay on until a replacement was found. Tired of waiting, he resigned again this week—effective immediately—and called on cabinet to walk out with him rather than “legitimise a profoundly irregular situation”. Behind all this looms Mr Aristide, engineering his return to the presidency in 2001 from his palatial estate outside Port-au-Prince.

One consequence of the bickering has been the withholding of over $100m in aid. That at least is what Madeleine Albright, the American secretary of state, said when she recently dropped in to upbraid Mr Préval. “Disputes in parliament are the lifeblood of democracy, but Haiti has gone too long with its government at a standstill,” she admonished. “All politicians of all parties must ask not what is best for themselves but what is best for Haiti.”

Mrs Albright brought with her some telling gifts: tear-gas, truncheons and shields for the riot squad. She also made clear that, even if the remaining 1,350 Canadian and Pakistani peacekeepers were gone soon, the 500 or so American military engineers now building roads and schools would stick around (presumably ready, if need be, to drop their shovels in favour of guns). Her words were welcomed by many. The only Haitians who seem to want the UN forces to leave are those not so preoccupied with finding their next meal that they can ponder the national indignity of having foreign troops on their soil. These days, that does not amount to very many.

Still, almost all Haitians appreciate that the country with a real interest in Haitian stability is the one leaving its troops behind. More than ever, what happens in Haiti matters in the United States—whether it be among Haitian-Americans in the polling booths of Miami and New York, among officials terrified at the thought of another tide of boat people, among defence planners considering Haiti as a possible place to which to move the United States' Cuban military base at Guantanamo, or simply among Democrats eager to ensure that President Bill Clinton's big foreign-policy success story remains just that.